Leveling a floor to put a stand on it

I doubt the landlord will be happy with that. cutting carpetting isnt always possible.

 

Sorry about the weight explanation attempt. I knew it wasn't very clear, but just could not find the right words to describe it. So I'm gonna have a second attempt:

Since the frame you will build must be absolutely leveled, but your floor is not, the frame will not make contact with the floor around the whole perimeter.
Imagine you have a small slope or a small bump. The slope will not be much of a problem, since the self leveling underlayment will always level at the top of the built platform anyways. But if you have either one on the floor, it will raise the frame from the floor a few millimeters o more, depending on how big of a bump there is.
The plastic film will prevent the underlayment cement from going under the frame and on your floor. By applying weight, you make sure you make that gap as small as possible and when the cement gets under the frame in this crack, the plastic will hold it and form a "lip". When you remove the frame, it will look like the letter "d" where the vertical part of "d" is the straight wall of the platform, and the "c" part is where the cement ran under the frame, and it is the part I was saying that it is easy to break off: When the wall should look like " | " it looks like " d "
I guess you could also fill the gap between frame and floor with newspaper and keep that little bit of cement that sips under the frame to a minimum.

Now that I have practiced a little bit with the sketchup program I will try to make it graphic. I know this isn't a very good explanation, but this is all I've got at the moment. Maybe by putting it down in a pic I can make it more understandable, since my foreigness sometimes leaves me with a lack of very precise words.

I'll work on the drawing.

xmetalfan69, I'm not sure how to do this on carpet. This would only work on hard surfaces. But I'm betting that removing the carpet is not an option ... I'm in the same boat

 

Well, I edited it, and I hope this makes it a bit more understandable. If you can understand it, please paste it to the original post so there's no confusion for anyone else.

If there's some some questions, please let me know, as well as any suggestions to make it more clear.

- Mag.

 

very cool, i am moving in a couple weeks and might try this. I would like to figure out some way to "dress up" the kick area

 

Yes, that is right. Keep in mind, that not always HD or lowe's will have the 1/8th inch thick toe-kick, so the amount you subtract from the total stand's base must be equal to the thickness of the toe-kick.

 

That's the reason for the toe-kick. Just make sure that it somewhat matches the color and sheen level on the finish of your stand. Once you put the stand on top of the concrete you won't see any of the concrete itself.

 

Your second attempt cleared it up. Thanks!! I love this. You drawings will make this very easy for others to understand what is involved. Thanks for your hardwork. I wish I had more time to make this happen. I hope someone will follow up with pics of their own.

matt

 

The painters plastic Magnus is refering to is also called visqueen.8) Also if this is going to work it has to be kept in exactly the same spot you want your tank so maybe just to be sure it doesn't move while you are working on it you could use tape and make an outline of the position it will be in so if it moves or you want to move it to chip off the edge you will know exactly were it should go.Also after you have poured the leveler and are ready to take it apart you could just slide some sort of drop cloth under it to protect your floor from glue or a stray chisel. Good luck and great work Magnus.

 

Thanks Vinny - Do you have a link to 1mm visqueen? I couldn't find any thing below 4mm.

 

I wouldn't think you would have to worry about this on carpet as much since the carpet will absorb the imperfections? And as long as your stand is good you should be level? This is what I think.